the year is slowly winding down, familial distractions are right around the corner, so i figured i'll post my monthly report already, since i probably won't be doing anything very productive until the new year anyway
this month's been pretty high on motivation. i started out november in a kind of a slump and unsure what i'll be doing next, and then ended it somehow by having to make a mind-map of all the ideas that i could work on, because i came up with tons of stuff that i probably won't be able to touch until next year
so the beginning of december i had to make a decision on what's going to be worked on RIGHT NOW and settled on continuing my series of minigames done in JS
so far i've birthed 3 of these little babies, which aren't really games, but more like sketches of games. because they don't have a story, i'm not particularly attached to any of them, but also they take such a short time to make that it feels ok to just humor them for a moment
it gives me a bit of space to explore areas that i wouldn't ever touch when working on a full game, because they'd be "scope creep" and "a waste of time". i can't imagine spending a precious day on mucking about with a particle engine when there's an actual script to be completed.
but here somehow it feels ok, because the whole thing IS scope creep. i'm just going from a toy to a toy, fiddling with the classes that service more lower-level stuff, refactoring something, then refactoring it back to where it was, and that feels ok.
i'm glad that SOMETHING is being released in the process, as a kind of a keepsake from doing all the work on the "engine" (really it isn't an engine, it's more of a library of classes that handle 2d graphics on the canvas, sound, keyboard and mouse input etc.)
it's fun to think about what minigame i could release next, and not having to stress about it being complete in any way. i will probably get bored at some point though and will want to work on a real thing. for now this is ok
i've also been playing tons of really good games this month AGAIN, and so my things i like collection has expanded by such masterpieces as:
- - ZATTAXI by Plum
- - Cursed List of Jungle Tilesets as Narrated by Werner Herzog by spiders
- - EVERYWHERE IS QUIET NOW. by LootBndt
since my last report i also played the new game by flowerstrangle, and let me tell you this flower is still on a roll because this was yet another banger. its very different from Scung in many ways but it still very much "has it"
and i could not not mention Tohou Reject: Arbitrary Prima Materia, what a ride and just an amazing mixed media project, ost an absolute banger too
life is suffering but less so when you are an appreciator of THE GOOD STUFF IN GAMING because hell what a time to be alive, i hope people keep releasing this goodness. it sustains me
there was other stuff happening but i don't want to drag this on. instead i'll drag my ass back to the goblin mines and come out again when i have something to show for myself, or at least when another moon had passed.
i want to leave you though with a fortune reading for next year: if you're an uma musume fan be wary of your wallet and your last three neurons being obliterated. the year of the horse is coming, and with it - limited time events. i am sure of it.
warm considerations for the season
peb